ok, I'll admit to not having installed Windows in a few years and things still haven't gotten any easier.

I have a laptop with 2 100GB SATA HDDs that have been dedicated to linux since I got the thing, but I have several CAD programs that I need to run so I broke down and installed xp on the thing to dual boot with Sabayon.

Now like I stated previously its been a while since I have attempted to install anything from Microsoft and was expecting something along the lines of what I am used to from many linux distros. Well the cd is bootable that was the only commonality.

Since XP doesn't have built in drivers for SATA drives I had to go out and buy a usb floppy drive just for this purpose. load my SATA drivers onto the disk and begin the install.

It failed twice because even though the documentation said to put all the drivers in the root directory which I did, then the install complained that it couldn't find the drivers, so a little more searching and lo and behold I needed to include an oemsetup.txt fiel and then put the files in the same directory path they where in on the cd. Go figure?

Ok so I get through the install it only took 30 minutes (if you don't count that fact that I had to go back 2 times and redo the driver floppy), 20 minutes longer than any linux install.

Now I reboot and hit the desktop, now I have ot go through and finish loading all the drivers for the video, networking, touchpad, chipset, and audio.

I get half way through the driver install for the chipset and it stops complaining I need a usbehci.sys in order to continue with the driver update.

So search the driver cd, no matching file; I search the windows files, no matching file; I google it; found several sites that have it but they want you to register or pay for it (pure B.S.) Finally I get a service pack 2 setup folder from another cd, copy the contents of th cabinet file over to a folder and locate the sys file.

On with finishing the driver install. After several reboots later I am finally up and running with a 'properly" setup XP install.

But then I have to install all the programs I need, Office, CAD, utilities, etc..

Oh god how I miss Linux..

I have to wait until I get home to reset my boot loader because Oh yeah Windows overwrote gurb and now I can't boot to Sabayon because I don't have a live cd with me..

It's enough to make a person want to go ballistic..

Oh yeah and by the way if you beleive that crap about Linux not being ready for the desktop then you haven't tried Windows yet..

Thanks Sabayon Developers for all your hard work, you make my life so much easier.

Tabrown, nobody here doubts that Linux isnt ready for the desktop yet IMO. Sabayon, PCLos, SuSe, Mephis, Ubuntu, Pioneer, KateOS, Mint,...Gee, who did I miss... Are all ready for prime time desktop use, and in fact ALL OF THEM are far superior to anything M$ could even contemplate doing. Windows, and even moreso Vista, were designed for the sole purpose of relocating your money to someone elses pocket. For example, I installed my XP for the purposes of testing Qemu/KVM out and it installed fine, but it installed with absolutely nothing in the way of any type of useful apps. I couldnt even play DVD's because it doesnt preinstall the codec's --- No, you have to pay for those!

I wasn't implying that I was saying anything about linux being ready for the desktop, I was drawing a comparison about how Windows is often used as a benchmark that is used to determine what is a goal to be obtained to be considered desktop ready, when in fact it falls so far short in many areas its not even laughable.

I can not describe the feeling of comfort I got after I got home from work and was able to repair lilo so I could boot into linux. I don't understand how people can use something that is so unfriendly, n on-elegant, and limited.

These are all just personal feelings of mine and I'm not trying to push them onto anyone one way or another, just relaying an experience I had today after having so well for so long.

Just speaking from my experiences, XP runs the apps that I use 80% of the time and Linux wont, and I dont care how much fuxing around with that app you do, Linux will not run it correctly. THAT is the reason that people prefer windows over Linux and thats it. If I cant run every single app I choose to run, then I take issue with that. Linux is about freedom sure, but not so much freedom that I can run anything. Linux is getting there despite M$'s best efforts, and it WILL be there one day soon, but not yet.....not yet. Again, that is for me and my wife, which brings up a whole new issue...

My wife, who is an absolute computer know-nothing, has extreme difficulty getting things to run in Linux including even simple things. For example, today she experimented with Gnumeric and kde froze up.. Blame whomever or whatever you care to, it makes the least bit of difference to her. The app would not work because she could not get it to start. That is an issue. So, she hopped on over to her XP machine and, with a single click, Excel came right up and she happily carried on. Excel has allways worked for her in windows, as do every one of my games, with a single click, 100% of the time. This is not the case with Linux...Yet.

KDe is awesome eye candy, but is extremely bloated and almost as much a resource hog as M$. I finally (after close to 3 years of KDE) made the switch to Gnome. Yes, I miss the KBFX launch buttons/menu and I miss Superkaramba. But I don't miss the random freezes and hourly SIGSEV's

I still use Windoze-targeted app's. No matter what anuone else says GIMP is not PhotoShop. And there are a few things that I use that do not have a GNU equivalent. But if WINE won't run them, I find a way to do without.

Just speaking from my experiences, XP runs the apps that I use 80% of the time and Linux wont, and I dont care how much fuxing around with that app you do, Linux will not run it correctly. THAT is the reason that people prefer windows over Linux and thats it. If I cant run every single app I choose to run, then I take issue with that. Linux is about freedom sure, but not so much freedom that I can run anything. Linux is getting there despite M$'s best efforts, and it WILL be there one day soon, but not yet.....not yet. Again, that is for me and my wife, which brings up a whole new issue...

My wife, who is an absolute computer know-nothing, has extreme difficulty getting things to run in Linux including even simple things. For example, today she experimented with Gnumeric and kde froze up.. Blame whomever or whatever you care to, it makes the least bit of difference to her. The app would not work because she could not get it to start. That is an issue. So, she hopped on over to her XP machine and, with a single click, Excel came right up and she happily carried on. Excel has allways worked for her in windows, as do every one of my games, with a single click, 100% of the time. This is not the case with Linux...Yet.

My wife is also computer illiterate, and only cares about what she wants to do and could care less about the wheres and whys of it all.

Last night she was inputting data into Ancestory.coms website through Firefox and every time she reached a certain point Firefox would just quite without rhyme or reason.

Was firefox to blame? was it the code on the website? was it KDE? or something else in the operating system? know one knows but you know who gets the blame?

lol, me....

Because I have linux on the computer and it crashed.

So I told her to try going through konqueror and sure enough it worked fine.

In my caes 80% of what I need runs perfectly through Linux but its the other 20% that made me install XP.

If I could get Pro/E. Ideas, NX3, or CATIA to run under Linux then that would be the cats meow.

Like you said its all in what you need to do, I'm not a huge gamer at all so its not a problemn for me, but I do recognize the need and priority of getting games to linux.

frogimus wrote:KDe is awesome eye candy, but is extremely bloated and almost as much a resource hog as M$. I finally (after close to 3 years of KDE) made the switch to Gnome. Yes, I miss the KBFX launch buttons/menu and I miss Superkaramba. But I don't miss the random freezes and hourly SIGSEV's

I still use Windoze-targeted app's. No matter what anuone else says GIMP is not PhotoShop. And there are a few things that I use that do not have a GNU equivalent. But if WINE won't run them, I find a way to do without.

gnome is waaay too minimal on the experimental futures for all it's heft when it comes time to emerge, but i always use it for the stability. gnome+ xgl+compiz will run very stable, and when exaile gets better, we will see some good gnome based systems come out that are unbreakable. foresight linux is one such system, and i may take a look at it when it gets to 3.0 and somebody gets 3D accell supported.

davemc wrote:JMy wife, who is an absolute computer know-nothing, has extreme difficulty getting things to run in Linux including even simple things.

It's not that bad. My 3 year old boy has been navigating the internet on Windows since before he was 2. I just switched to SL, and he didn't have any problem at all adjusting. I didn't even have to show him how to do anything. The only problem is trying to get companies like ATI to modernize their drivers. Trying to run Windows programs in Linux is the same as Mac people trying to run Windows programs. They just don't do it in MacOS. They dual boot to Windows if they want that.

But on topic:

I installed Vista. My printer (which isn't a dinosaur) isn't supported. My All-in-Wonder video card/tv tuner isn't supported, and I found out it probably never will be. Some of my Windows software wouldn't work with it. Yeah, Vista is really ready for the desktop. This is why I switched back to Linux. The Linux world has come a long way since the last time I used it.

Of all these the only one I use Windows XP for is the last one, and if I couldn't do that my wife would be delighted. So when people say that Linux is not ready for the desktop, i just don't get it! What is missing? I have tried Ubuntu, SUSE, Fedora, Zenwalk, PClinuxOS, Mandriva, DSL, Knoppix and lately Sabayon and they ALL WORK! Yes, some required a bit more tweaking than others but no more than XP. Do a complete re-install of windows and see how many seperate CDs you need compared with Linux.
So will someone please tell me what Linux needs to be "ready for the desktop". What is the final piece of the jigsaw? Am I in blissful ignorance thinking that Linux can do all I want it to but actually missing the big picture. Or...?